Holiday stress doesn't end after the holidays: now it's time to take down the decorations, put away all your new toys, and get rid of the stuff you no longer need. If looking at your disaster of a house has got you stressed out, here's how to easily de-clutter after the holidays.

Pack Up Your Decorations Neatly

Every year, we toss our Christmas decorations in boxes haphazardly, and every year we curse ourselves when it's time to take them out. This year, take a bit more time to pack up those decorations and make sure they're neat. If you're still using old cardboard boxes that are barely hanging on, invest in a few plastic containers and stick some labels on them so you know what's what. If you don't have sticky labels, that's fine—you can just as easily stick a piece of paper in the clear tupperware container for easy viewing.

Advertisement

When it comes to packing up your lights, wrap them up in a way that won't get them tangled. We've mentioned using a coffee can, but eHow has an even better solution: wrap them around those wrapping paper tubes you just used up! Once all the lights are off the tree, check out our guide to packing it up like a pro, too.

Replace Old Items with New Gifts

Apart from decorations, most of your clutter is going to come from all the new stuff you got this year. As you start to file away all your new goodies, throw out or donate their old counterparts. For example, if you got a new camera, donate your old one or sell it instead of keeping it around. Over at weblog Organized Home, they recommend following a "Get One, Toss Two" rule to keep your house really clean: for each new gift you put away, get rid of two counterparts. By the time you're done, you'll already have a jump on your spring cleaning, because you'll end up with even less than you started with.

Of course, clearing all that stuff out of your house is a chore in and of itself. Organized Home's solution? Fill up all your empty holiday boxes with the stuff you're going to get rid of:

Have mailing boxes piled up as holiday gifts arrived? Sure, you could recycle or reuse them, but for maximum end-of-year clutter-cutting, take the Holiday Mailing Box Challenge!

Your goal: to fill every seasonal mailing box with items suitable for donation to Goodwill or a similar recycler for used household items, and deliver them to charity before year's end.

It should only take you a day or so to clear all that stuff out, and when you're done, you'll have killed two birds with one stone.

Sell or Regift Unwanted Gifts

As you pack away your awesome gifts, separate your not-so-awesome gifts from the herd. Don't even put them away—if you don't want them, there's no reason to keep them around and let them collect dust until you clean your house again next year. We've already covered a lot of things you can do with unwanted gifts, but it bears refreshing: if you can return them, that's great, or at least sell them on Amazon and get some cash back.

Alternatively, you can regift those items to another friend or family member. Some of you may take issue with this, but it isn't really a bad thing. If it's going to go to waste in your house, you should give it to someone who will appreciate it. Of course, you don't want to just start handing out random gifts—only regift an item if you know someone that will actually enjoy it. If that isn't as easy, remember that everyone gets gifts they don't want—so consider hosting a white elephant regift exchange for everyone to get rid of their unwanted items. If nothing else, it'll be good for a few laughs, and if you end up with something even worse than what you started with, you can always donate it through a charitable organization.

It sounds like a lot of work, but the sooner you clear out the clutter, the sooner you can get back to business as usual without holiday stress creeping in at every turn. The above tips should help make the process a lot easier, but if you have any of your own, be sure to share them in the comments.